Panpsychism is the idea that everything in the universe feels experiences, not just humans (or animals, or some other "thinking" category of beings).

tl;dr: All arguments against panpsychism are foolish appeals to an evolved useful instinct, which like all other useful instincts only reflect what was useful for survival - not any fundamental aspect of the universe.

The arguments against panpsychism are so poorly conceived that I have found myself swayed to believe in panpsychism.

They all basically boil down to an appeal to a baseless belief - that it must somehow be necessary to "think" in order to "feel". It's just saying, "Come on, that lump of rock obviously can't think, so how can it experience anything?"

But...well, how is that even a given? We have no problem saying that when you throw a rock, it will then feel air resistance; it will _feel_ gravity. We have no problem talking about its behavior. Why do anti-panpsychists insist that this experience of feeling things is not "real". It's certainly real enough for us to very successfully use in aiming artillery shells at targets or interplanetary probes at planetary bodies.

The answer is that it just is intuitively silly. But why? Evolution. These fools are simply succumbing to a very useful survival trait ingrained into our thinking patterns.

There was a survival benefit to categorize objects into "thinking" beings with "free will" vs "unthinking" objects which simply passively react to external forces. The reason this is useful is because the latter can be very reliably predicted, while the former may always surprise you (perhaps fatally). For example, consider a lion. No matter how friendly a lion may seem to be, it's simply never a good idea to get too close to it. Maybe it'll be hungry that day. Maybe it'll just attack you for the heck of it. Either way, you'd be dead and you'd lose your ability to pass along your genes.

So, there's a strong instinctive categorization we use to separate the world into "thinking" capricious things which can have motivations and "free will", vs "unthinking" inanimate objects.

Is there any rational reason to expect this useful survival instinct to reflect a deep fundamental reality of the universe? No. There is not. It's just an instinct.

We have lots of instinctive categorizations. We've got a strong instinctive way to determine whether a human is male or female. That's a pretty darn useful survival capability for passing along the genes. Does it reflect some fundamental reality of the underlying nature of the universe? No. It does not.

That's all that Searle has - a foolish appeal to an instinct. And that's all that *anyone* before or after Searle has ever had to oppose panpsychism.

Thanks for the thoughts and idea, everyone! I'll admit that I don't really "get" what hasidism or Kabbalah have to say about these ideas.

My own perspective is as an atheist who is applying Occam's Razor to the situation I perceive. I can't tell whether or not any God exists. For simplicity and elegance, my working theory is that there is no God. That's an application of Occam's Razor, but I recognize that it's not an ultimate arbitration for determining the truth. It's just a principle which guides preferred working theories.

That's where I'm getting at with panpsychism. What, precisely, is the difference between the appearance of motivation/intent, and "actual" motivation/intent? I'm not convinced there is any. Occam's Razor guides me to go with a working there that there is not actually any difference.

So - a Roomba appears to have motivation/intent. A dumb electron appears to have motivation/intent. It seems to want to accelerate toward positive charges and away from negative charges.

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. I'll ascribe them with a sort of consciousness and that they feel experiences. To me, the simplest most elegant explanations are:

1) Everything feels experiences

or

2) Nothing feels experiences

Yet...I just can't deny my own experience of feeling experiences. So, I prefer to go with working theory #1.

Words are used in different ways for different reasons. Conscise & to the point works for me. Try putting everything into a sentence or a paragraph that no one can contradict. This clarifies your thoughts & you remove non-essential words, less is often more!

@ivan zlax I don't think of "experience" as meaning anything like that at all. To me, an "experience" is what is experienced in the moment. Consider an event. You can have some objective data about the event, which might include descriptive details of it, precise measurements, whatever. Maybe you have a webcam recording of the event. Maybe that's some sort of memory of the event, but it isn't the actual _experience_ of the event.

Consider the event - Isaac accidentally sliced the tip of his finger off.

What remains is that my fingertip is separated from my finger and my finger is bleeding. That's fundamentally different from the actual event where something was happening in real time. Now _that_ was an experience! Ouch!

But more than that - simply observing the event in third person is a viscerally different experience from experiencing the event in first person.

Anyway, memory of an experience afterward is not necessary in order to have had experienced that experience. I can't remember the dreams I had last night. I still experienced them, though.

I hope that with my examples of using the word "experience", you may better understand the meaning I mean when I use it.

Consider the event - Isaac accidentally sliced the tip of his finger off.

A couple of decades ago i saw such a scene in the Takeshi Kitano film. It is the only thing that i remember in that film.

I hope that with my examples of using the word "experience", you may better understand the meaning I mean when I use it.

Yes, now i understand you more precisely, in my language it is called "переживание" [pere-zhivaniye], maybe "over-living". The dictionary translates it as: experience; feeling, emotional experience; worry, anxiety; survival (biological).

But still i assume that still it is a neuro-level. I am not sure, for example, that one single animal cell, without connections with others, is capable of experiencing ("over-living"), rather, it is simply capable of living.

@ivan zlax I would argue that for something to experience, that thing would need, at minimum, some sort of sensory input system. Even without any sort of neurological system for information processing, there needs to be some sort of input to be experienced.

With this definition, plants are capable of experience, as are, arguably, even man-made devices such as computers or solar cell panels, but a rock doesn't have any means of detecting whether it's sitting on the ground or hurtling through the air.

@Nathan V Yes, i understand that. I am a devoted supporter of biocentrism. Any carbon life form is valuable for me. I myself carbon life, i absorb carbon life, and i able to create carbon life in collobration with another carbon life. Therefore, carbon life form is paramount to me. For example, i cannot absorb humans (i cannot eat them, for certain reasons), therefore people are not so valuable to me as carbon life forms in toto. I am an aggressive opponent of anthropocentrism. Anthropocentrism threatens biocentrism. For example, a robot is not valuable to me. I can create and destroy a robot without guilt or any emotion.

But with this panpsychic approache, i think for myself to change the basic world outlook principles. For example, a solar panel or a robot: i could not destroy it so easily if i were a supporter of panpsychisim. I think at some point i will have to choose between these two philosophies.

The problem, to me, is defining precisely what a "sensory input system" is. A rock has exactly as much ability to react to its environment as solar cell panels. Sunlight hits it, it heats up in reaction to the input. A rock acts differently if it's sitting on the ground or hurtling through the air.

It has the appearance of reacting to its environment. How, precisely, is this different from "actually" reacting to its environment?

@ivan zlax Okay, there is a question of how this fits in with morality. I think that we must first consider panpsychism without the baggage of what is moral or immoral. Same thing with the question of free will. In both cases, we have extremely powerful instinctive intuitions which we really really really want to be true. But that should be a red flag. Our instinctive intuitions are things which evolved because they has a survival benefit - not because they were true or rationally justifiable.

We must recognize that our powerful instinctive intuitions tend to entrap us into illogical motivated thinking. Only then can we make a reasonable assessment of reality.

As for the morality of destroying a robot or rock ... one possible way out of the moral quandary is to consider the survival instinct. Does a being give even the appearance of trying to survive? If so, then we can give it the benefit of the doubt and consider that it wants to survive. But what about a fruit which drops from a tree? It gives the appearance of wanting to be eaten by an animal - so its seeds will propagate. This is the moral justification that fruititarians and such give.

A dumb rock or electron? They give no appearance of trying to survive. They seem indifferent to their fate.

Of course, there's the matter of videogame AI. In a lot of cases, they are purposefully written to try and survive. Take from that what you will...

In my opinion, the difference is simple. If you cut the stone in half, then you will have two stones. If you cut a robot or a man exactly in half - their number will not double, because with this you will destroy a robot or a man. You will have two halves of a robot or a man. A man or a robot has a center: the central nervous system or the central processor, which determines their essence. You will have two smaller stones, which will function just like their larger parent. But when there is a central system everything changes.

Does the creature even have the appearance of trying to survive?

I think this should not be decisive, the survival instinct can be reprogrammed, both in a robot and in a man (the heroism of the kamikaze is a vivid example of this). This can be taken into account, but this can not be guided in matters of moral. A creature by external will can strive for self-destruction, in this case it is not worth encouraging it, i think.

But what about a fruit which drops from a tree?

This means that they are ripe.

Of course, there's the matter of videogame AI. In a lot of cases, they are purposefully written to try and survive. Take from that what you will...

I think we should not mix digital reality and biological. In this case later we will come to the conclusion that building hypothetical abstractions about cutting in our thoughts is immoral.

Plants have pain and panic responses, without having an indivisible central system. If you cut a plant exactly in half, their number will double.

Conversely, there are plenty of things which have a particular structure, and cutting it in half will destroy its functionality. For example, a balloon is only properly functional when it is a coherent whole. If you cut it in half, you don't get two balloons.

Plants have pain and panic responses, without having an indivisible central system. If you cut a plant exactly in half, their number will double.

Not really, if you cut the plant to the root, then only one part will remain alive, and it’s not a fact that a new plant will grow out of old root. The crown of the plant (upper part) will wither and die, if only you do not immerse it in the nutrient solution. In the same way, you can grow your clone from your cut finger. This of course is a special advantage of organic forms.

For example, a balloon is only properly functional when it is a coherent whole. If you cut it in half, you don't get two balloons.

Yes it is. Does this mean that the ability of a form to perform some function is decisive? If the division of the form deprives the object-determining function, then it is one type. If the division of the form does not change the functionality - then this is a different type. It turns out so?

@Isaac Ji Kuo, i know, this is called cloning (vegetative reproduction in plants). You can also do with a human (one living cell is enough, it is not necessary to divide exactly in half). But it requires special events. Take, for example, an adult tree: if a tree is cut down to the root and just leave the crown, the upper half will die. But meanwhile, few time from the sawn crown, you can clone many new plants.Theoretically, a similar situation with all multicellular organisms.If you just cut a houseplant and do not hold special events, then with a high probability the cut part will dry out and die. In principle, for most plants, it is enough to simply remove from the natural environment (from the soil) to kill it, it is not even necessary to cut it.Perhaps the central system of plants is the sap flow canals.

@Isaac Ji Kuo Unfortunately, it requires. Your example is not about cutting of separate plant, but about dividing a group of plants.Try to cut a separate plant (separate stem) to half (root and stem), and if you don’t put the cutted stem in water or nutrient solution (special events), upper half of the plant quick die.To provide that the cut off parts of plants do not die, but successfully take root, i usually use this substance:#^https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indole-3-acetic_acidAnd only after good shallow rooting, i usually have put the clone back into the ground.

No really - it's a single plant which gets cut into multiple plants, not dividing a group of plants. This is a silly argument.

You're just searching in vain for something "special" that is a requirement for consciousness, and utterly failing. There is nothing special about a conscious being that inherently means it can't split into two conscious beings.

@Isaac Ji Kuo In my language, "consciousness" is a process, not a property. The process implies the existence of some kind of system or at least a channel. A process is a flow of some kind of phenomenon. In order to determine consciousness in some matter, it is necessary to understand the carrier of this process.I'm not trying to prove to you that i am right, and your are left. I am trying to convey to you the understanding of the described phenomenon in my terminology.

@Isaac Ji Kuo, do you identify panpsychism with holism from this picture?For me, these are identical concepts (panpsychism = holism).If you - not, please indicate the differences.Thank you in advance, i am interested to understand this.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Panpsychism @Isaac Ji Kuo. One of the things I love about Diaspora is that people really use tags. This allows users to find valuable threads with very interesting comments (like this one and the other post you did on the same topic) which can be valuable sources of food for our thoughts.

I am myself seriously investigating the concept of panpsychism. I have worked on the neuroscience of unconscious (linguistic) information processing for quite some years now and have become a bit frustrated over the years because I feel there is too much brain data being produced by research nowadays, but nowhere near enough explanatory models to make sense of this data. We have no idea how to even begin to solve the hard problem of consciousness, and yet researchers are quick to interpret their data of neural phenomena with very simplistic and compartmentalized models of cognition.

This led me to the idea that reductive materialism might be inadequate to explain cognitive/mental phenomena. But I didn't want to fall into dualism, which is surprisingly common in linguistics and neuroscience. Panpsychism thus entered the scene, and I haven't been able to totally dismiss it. Actually, it makes more and more sense the more I read about it. For once, it allows to accept the hypothesis that the laws of the cognitive realm cannot be reduced to the laws of physical systems, while at the same time relying on a single model instead of postulating that there must exist two separate, parallel levels of existence. Instead, there would be only one: consciousness.

Of course, the key step now is to define what is consciousness in a way that is less anthropocentric. Specifically, what would we mean when we say atoms and electrons can be conscious. Here, I think of the theory of autopoiesis, developed by Franciso Varela and Humberto Maturana. This is a definition of life that solves the problem of what constitutes cognition in living organisms. In a nutshell, it defines cognition in a way that we can ascribe it as a continuum to organisms (systems) of all types of complexity, from the unicellular to the human. Whenever pieces of matter/energy come together in such a way that the create a system which is separated from its environment, an equilibrium will be reached, which is necessary to maintain the separation between the system and the environment where the system is. Cognition would be any interaction between the system and its environment in order for the system to continue being a system separate from the environment. Once this balance cannot be maintained, the system dissolves into the environment which originally contained it, like a rock would dilute into its constituent elements with erosion and time, or just like an animal becomes organic matter after death.

In sum, I think the theory of autopoiesis, as applied to the definition of life and cognition, fits nicely into the idea of panpsychism. However, no one has, to my knowledge, tried to make these two theories converge. I think all is needed is a more precise definition of life, cognition and consciousness that can also encompass the explanatory constructs of both theories.